The God Of *ALL* Our Days

The mission of The Sage Forum is to encourage, equip, and empower women over 40 to mature in faith and grow in wisdom. We send out a newsletter at the beginning of each month focusing on a different theme relevant to women in the second half of life.

Today’s Sage Forum Extra! is a short mid-month reflection meant to offer you a word of encouragement. Today’s Extra! is penned by Lois Flowers. Learn more about Lois at her website and follow her Instagram account @rememberingourparents that is dedicated to honoring the memories of parents who are no longer with us.

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All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. – Psalm 139:16b (NIV)

When my husband Randy and I were waiting to adopt our two daughters from China, we didn’t know who or where they were. God did, though, and it soothed our longing hearts to remember He was watching over them and guiding their precious lives.

The dates they were born—and later joined our family—were written in His book long before we ever dreamed of becoming their parents. This truth was a lifeline for us as we counted down the days to meet them.

Decades later, Psalm 139:16 proved foundational once again when my own mom and dad were nearing the end of their lives. As the person making all their medical decisions, I clung to the understanding that, while I was evaluating the options and signing the paperwork, God was the One who was directing their steps.

In the months following their deaths, when the regrets and what-ifs kept me up night after night, Randy often reminded me that nothing I could have done differently would have changed the day each of them died, five weeks apart.

Those days were written in God’s book too, long before they were born.

This thought gave me peace then, and it gives me solace even now as I wonder why God allowed a friend to collapse with an aneurysm just last week. It may not be the kind of truth we share with newly grieving loved ones, but we can pray it becomes a comfort to them as they mourn.

When we think of how God orchestrates the days of our lives, I suppose it’s natural to focus on birth dates and death dates, on beginnings and endings. In recent years, though, I’ve started to comprehend in a deeper way how God is sovereign over “all the days” and milestone events of our lives, not just the beginning and the end.

I went through some challenging years of hormonal upheaval in my late 30s and was post-menopausal at 41—a full 10 years before the average woman hits this milestone.

During these years, I often struggled with why. Why this continued trouble, after all the pain my broken reproductive system had already given me? Why now, so early in my life compared to everyone else?

Now, though, I can look back and see how God used this “bad timing” in ways that were beneficial for me, and for others.

Had I been trying to manage menopausal symptoms even five years later, it would have been much harder for me to function as a mom, wife and daughter during my parents’ last years and months.

Even earlier, God used my experience with perimenopause to turn this logical girl into a person with a deeper capacity for empathy and compassion than I had before—or even realized I was lacking. I’m still a work in progress, but I’m grateful for the seeds God planted during that tough season.

As hard as it was and as much as I prayed for it to be over, that phase of my life was written in God’s book too, along with all your days and seasons—good and bad.

The older we get, the more problems we will have, and the more we might be tempted to wonder if God is paying attention to the details of our days. Did this devastating diagnosis somehow slip past His omnipotent notice? How are the other events and circumstances that are causing weakness, sorrow, sickness and distress in or around us working out for our good, as Romans 8:28 promises?

We haven’t even gotten to the inevitable “why” questions that, as most of us have figured out by now, usually have no discernable answers. Why this? Why them? Why now?

Psalm 139:16 doesn’t answer our “why” questions. But as we move forward in faith on this long walk home, it does assure us that each mile marker and significant event on the way is known to the sovereign God who loves us and will never abandon us.

Prayer: Lord, when our hearts cry “why”—about something happening to us or to someone we love—help us remember you’ve written all our days in your book, including this hard one. We don’t always understand how your goodness and your sovereignty work together, but we want to believe they do. Comfort our souls, Lord, and strengthen us when we waver. Amen.

For further reflection: Are there events or circumstances in your life that left you questioning God’s timing but now seem like they happened exactly at the right time? Does remembering God is sovereign over “all our days” soften loss for you?